Alabama Platform

Alabama Platform, in U.S. history, Southern political leader William L. Yancey’s response (1848) to the antislavery Wilmot Proviso (q.v.). The Alabama platform insisted that the U.S. government protect slavery in territories ceded to the United States by Mexico and that no territorial legislature be allowed to prohibit slavery. The Democratic Party declined to adopt Yancey’s platform at the national conventions of 1848 and 1860. After the 1860 convention nominated Stephen A. Douglas for the presidency, Southern party members broke away to nominate John C. Breckinridge to run on the Alabama Platform.